"An excellent tool in Middle Eastern politics classes [and] an intellectual resource for experts who want to learn more about the complexities of Israel."— Reading ReligionAmericans debate constantly about Israel, its place in the Middle East, and its relations with the United States. Essential Israel examines a wide variety of complex issues and current concerns in historical and contemporary contexts to provide readers with an intimate sense of t...

Modern Israel's founding fathers provided some of the boldest and most principled leadership of any nation--now Israel needs their example more than ever.Modern Israel's founding fathers provided some of the boldest and most principled leadership of any nation. Now Israel needs their example more than ever.At a time when the political destiny of Israel is more uncertain than at any moment since its modern founding, Be Strong and of Good Courage celebrates ...

This book explores the personal, domestic, regional, and international factors that led Israel's Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and other top aides to negotiate the peace accords. It describes in fascinating detail the intricacies of the Israel-Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) bargaining.

"A trenchant and often pugnacious demolition of the numerous misconceptions about strategic thinking on the Middle East"-The New York TimesNow updated with a new chapter on the current climate, Myths, Illusions, and Peace addresses why the United States has consistently failed to achieve its strategic goals in the Middle East. According to Dennis Ross-special advisor to President Obama and senior director at the National Security Council fo...

Modern Israel's founding fathers provided some of the boldest and most principled leadership of any nation--now Israel needs their example more than ever.Modern Israel's founding fathers provided some of the boldest and most principled leadership of any nation. Now Israel needs their example more than ever.At a time when the political destiny of Israel is more uncertain than at any moment since its modern founding, Be Strong and of Good Courage celebrates ...

The historian and expert on Israeli-Palestinian relations offers "a well-written, well-balanced" account of cultural conflicts in the region before WWI (Anita Shapira, author of Israel: A History).When did the Arab-Israeli conflict begin? Some discussions focus on the 1967 war, some go back to the creation of the state of Israel in 1948, and others look to the beginning of the British Mandate in 1922. Alan Dowty, however, traces the earliest roots of the c...

The little-known story of Gandhi's reluctance to challenge the caste system, and the man who fought fiercely for India's downtrodden.Democracy hasn't eradicated caste, argues bestselling author and Booker Prize–winner Arundhati Roy—it has entrenched and modernized it. To understand caste today in India, Roy insists we must examine the influence of Gandhi in shaping what India ultimately became: independent of British rule, globally powerful, and marked to this day b...

"Shines a floodlight on a topic that has been cloaked in obscurity . . . a landmark work in both intellectual history and political theory" ( The Wall Street Journal).Philosophical esotericism—the practice of communicating one's unorthodox thoughts "between the lines"—was a common practice until the end of the eighteenth century. Despite its long and well-documented history, however, esotericism is often dismissed today as a rare occurrence. But by ignorin...

"A fascinating account of the gathering and dissemination of news from the end of the Middle Ages to the French Revolution" and the rise of the newspaper (Glenn Altschuler, The Huffington Post).Long before the invention of printing, let alone the daily newspaper, people wanted to stay informed. In the pre-industrial era, news was mostly shared through gossip, sermons, and proclamations. The age of print brought pamphlets, ballads, and the first news-sheets...

A visual history of the many peoples who've inhabited and shaped Britain, from hunter-gatherers to Celts, Vikings, Normans, and modern immigrants.This atlas covers the history of the British Isles from earliest times to the present day. The first hunter-gatherers, who crossed into what would become the United Kingdom by the land-bridge, and later followed by more familiar peoples the Celts, Angles, Saxons, Vikings, and Normans, who together would create Britain's u...

"Written with great accuracy, detail, enthusiasm, and insight . . . a new perspective on the well-trodden story of the Arab Revolt" ( Military History Matters on its Book of the Year, Silver Award–winner).Striking where the enemy is weakest and melting away into the darkness before he can react. Never confronting a stronger force directly, but using audacity and surprise to confound and demoralize an opponent. Operations driven by good intelligence, area kn...

"The best, the liveliest and most illuminating" account of Rockefeller, Morgan, and the other men who seized American economic power after the Civil War ( The New Republic).John D. Rockefeller, J. P. Morgan, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Andrew Carnegie, E. H. Harriman, Jay Gould, Henry Clay Frick . . . their names carry a powerful historical ring, still echoing today in the countless institutions that are part of their legacy, from universities to museums to bank...